and conceived there the idea of several religious pictures.  Then he became enthusiastic about the Spaniards, especially Velasquez and Goya.  The sincere expression of things seen took root from this moment as the principal rule of art in the brain of this young Frenchman who was loyal, ardent, and hostile to all subtleties.  He painted some fine works, like the Buveur d’absinthe and the Vieux musicien.  They show the influence of Courbet, but already the blacks and the greys have an original and superb quality; they announce a virtuoso of the first order.

It was in 1861 that Manet first sent to the Salon the portraits of his parents and the Guitarero, which was hailed by Gautier, and rewarded by the jury, though it roused surprise and irritation.  But after that he was rejected, whether it was a question of the Fifre or of the Dejeuner sur l’herbe. This canvas, with an admirable feminine nude, created a scandal, because an undressed woman figured in it amidst clothed figures, a matter of frequent occurrence with the masters of the Renaissance.  The landscape is not painted in the open air, but in the studio, and resembles a tapestry, but it shows already the most brilliant evidence of Manet’s talent in the study of the nude and the still-life of the foreground, which is the work of a powerful master.  From the time of this canvas the artist’s personality appeared in all its maturity.  He painted it before he was thirty, and it has the air of an old master’s work; it is based upon Hals and the Spaniards together.

The reputation of Manet became established after 1865.  Furious critics were opposed by enthusiastic admirers.  Baudelaire upheld Manet, as he had upheld Delacroix and Wagner, with his great clairvoyance, sympathetic to all real originality.  The Olympia brought the discussion to a head.  This courtesan lying in bed undressed, with a negress carrying a bouquet, and a black cat, made a tremendous stir.  It is a powerful work of strong colour, broad design and intense sentiment, astounding in its parti-pris of reducing the values to the greatest simplicity.  One can feel in it the artist’s preoccupation with rediscovering the rude frankness of Hals and Goya, and his aversion against the prettiness and false nobility of the school.  This famous Olympia which occasioned so much fury, appears to us to-day as a transition work.  It is neither a masterpiece, nor an emotional work, but a technical experiment, very significant for the epoch during which it appeared in French art, and this canvas, which is very inferior to Manet’s fine works, may well be considered as a date of evolution.  He was doubtful about exhibiting it, but Baudelaire decided him and wrote to him on this occasion these typical remarks:  “You complain about attacks?  But are you the first to endure them?  Have you more genius than Chateaubriand and Wagner?  They were not killed by derision.  And, in order not to make you too proud, I must tell you, that they are models each in his own way and in a very rich world, whilst you are only the first in the decrepitude of your art.”